Australia · State of New South Wales · Sydney
Kirribilli, Sydney — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Kirribilli is a harbourside suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, on a small point roughly three kilometres north of the central business district. Its streets run steep and narrow. One of the city's older and more moneyed neighbourhoods, it looks straight across the water to the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The suburb is best known as the home of Kirribilli House, one of two official residences of the Prime Minister of Australia.
About Kirribilli
Where to stay in Kirribilli
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Kirribilli is a residential suburb first, so beds here are scarce and run to serviced apartments and small guesthouses rather than large hotels. Staying here means quiet, leafy streets and a ferry ride to the centre rather than nightlife on the doorstep. The payoff is the view.
From the foreshore you look straight across the water at the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with Circular Quay a few minutes away by ferry. Travellers who want a wider choice of rooms will find it across the water in central Sydney or north in North Sydney.
About Kirribilli
What are the main landmarks in Kirribilli?
The suburb's two grandest addresses stand together on Kirribilli Point: Admiralty House, the Sydney residence of the Governor-General of Australia, and Kirribilli House next door. Both look out over the harbour. Their lawns give some of the closest head-on views of the Sydney Opera House and the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Just west, at neighbouring Milsons Point, the old fairground of Luna Park sits under the bridge's northern approach.
What is the history of Kirribilli?
The name comes from an Aboriginal word for the area, usually translated as a good place for fishing. Grand houses followed. Through the nineteenth century the point filled with harbourside villas, among them Admiralty House and, from the 1850s, Kirribilli House.
Both later became official residences, Admiralty House for the Governor-General of Australia and Kirribilli House for the Prime Minister. In the twentieth century much of the older housing gave way to apartment blocks, leaving Kirribilli one of the more densely built parts of the Lower North Shore.
Where is Kirribilli?
The suburb occupies a compact point on the south-facing edge of the Lower North Shore, wrapped by Sydney Harbour on two sides. Milsons Point lies immediately west. The Sydney Harbour Bridge comes ashore there, at the foot of Kirribilli, while Careening Cove separates the point from Neutral Bay to the east.
North Sydney sits inland to the north, and passenger ferries cross the harbour from the Kirribilli wharf to Circular Quay.
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Updated July 2026